day 5 - Valentine, Nebraska to Ames, Iowa
 

 

the horse brothers staring at a ditch

outside valentine nebraska, Day 5

on day 5 i started the day all by myself. i got about 45 min out of town and my phone rang asking me where i was and if i could possibly come back and take some passengers. i wasn't big on it, but what was i gonna do? leave them there? make 7 people sit in a truck built for 4? so, i had bagel and mark h in my car. two fine riders. both on the scooters and in my car. we saw some entertaining sites had some interesting experiences...

this was also the day that patrick and i had a little disagreement.

 

the picture i took of the gas station chain...

the picture bagel took...

can you believe there is a gas station chain, in middle america, called kum and go? beavis and butthead humor maybe, but still, unbelievable
this sign could be seen leaving town. i must have passed it 3 times but never noticed it. someone else got it though. fabulous that someone took the time to put it up. jd was the mad man (though ashrat would have been madder had she been on a bigger bike) and kieran was the slow but steady tortoise. he finished everyday, even if it meant only doing 40 mph.

hey look?! o'neill, nebraska is only 111 miles from valentine!

but we mustn't forget, when you leave valentine you are:
i thought this image was fascinating. one completely destroyed silo, one pretty munched, one slightly munched and 2 without a scratch on them. i can only assume a tornado?

 

after going back to get bagel and mark the day was pretty normal. just driving through a bunch of country. LOTS of flat open fields. we saw a giant jackalope on the top of a hill (no mountains in eastern nebraska and iowa) but weren't quick enough to get a picture. i think this was the day we encountered the first true fork in the road, i have ever seen. it wasn't that one lane drifted one direction. it was that the road forked. if i had continued forward i would have hit the sign.

this was also the day i busted my ass to find patrick another reed block. i tried calling the scooter shops in the ohio/illinois area. when i called scooterworks in chicago it went a little like this 'hi, my husband is racing in the cannonball and we ate a reed yesterday. i need to get a new reed block shipped to pride of cleveland scooters', i said. 'ok, what kind of scooter is it?', he said. 'a 125 small frame with a 133 kit', i said. 'WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY RIDING A SMALL FRAME ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN THE CANNONBALL?!', he yelled. 'yeah, i've heard it before. do you have the block?'... he had it but we had to buy the carb too and we didn't need a carb (plus it cost like $300). finally i decided to call david at first kick. of course, he had exactly what we needed and would fedex it to pride of cleveland right away!

patrick called me from the hotel (i was way behind because i had to turn around in the morning) and i let him know i found it and it was on its way. he said he had been talking to rolf and they agreed he needed to reattach the reed value with a better gasket and stuff. i said ok, what about dinner? he said 'there is a subway down on the corner, i think it is best if we go there'. excuse me? best if WE go there? i have been busting my butt all day driving around picking people up and finding your damn reed value and i get subway at the gas station on the corner? once i finally arrived at the hotel patrick was busily working on his reed valve. i walked up and he didn't even acknowledge me. 'um, hello' he was deep in scooters and i was getting pissed. 'did you check into the hotel?' i asked. yeah. nothing. 'could i have a key to the room?' oh. um, here (he pulls a key from his boot). 'uh, what room number is it?' silence. 'forget it, i'll find out myself' and i left. a bunch of the racers were going for dinner but when i asked them to wait, they didn't. not sure why. i went across the highway to a truck stop and had a bacon cheese burger. it was yummy. the waitress was very subtle when she came over and said 'so, where are you getting off of work from?' i giggled. 'oh, i am from california, on holiday driving across the country with the scooters across the highway. ash had been in for fuel on his elite 250 with the jaws on the front, so she knew what i was talking about.

back across the highway i went to the gas station on the corner for mouthwash or something like that. and postcards. patrick was there with bagel having dinner (at subway). patrick came up to me in the mini-mart and said 'you seem upset'. uh, yeah, i am upset. i bust my butt all day for your reed value and get nothing. you are lost in your damn scooter. he defended himself by saying he did need the reed value i found, but that wasn't the point. this little adventure wasn't any easier on me than him, our jobs were just different. i was highly offended he couldn't even bother to remember the hotel room number or pause to help me carry all the bangs up to the room. this is when the anal retentive scooter thing is a problem. when he forgets the rest of us in the world. a few days prior to that i had to tell him he needed to at least put his dirty underwear in his suitcase in the morning. i was his support not his maid. this episode didn't help. 'oh, sorry. you're right'. yeah, whatever. still pisses me off, but the show had to go on. we hung with bagel as he finished his dinner and went back to the hotel. not a good day, really. i liked the horse brothers though. i still wonder what they were staring at.

oh, we came in 1st our class and 12th overall. without heytens (after multiple mechanical failures he dropped out at the end of day 4, unfortunately), the previous year's winner, the competition was really not stiff. mostly it was us against a small frame vespa. after we won our class and finished 11th overall (sorry to spoil it) one of the guys in our class asked how patrick could possibly have done it. i said he had blue-printed his engine. 'oh, well, then of course he made it. and it isn't fair that he is a mechanical engineer. of course he built a bullet proof bike'. but patrick pointed out that the other bikes were built by shops, so what is the difference? i agree with patrick. the only rule we stretched was that i had all the tools and stuff in the car (though patrick had quite a bit on the bike. i had weird breakage stuff, like eating a reed valve). normally you were suppose to carry anything you needed on the bike. but even that rule was weird because it was more that the official support vehicles didn't want to carry people's stuff. we built a great bike, that is all that really matters. (team oopsclunkthud is taking applications for the next cannonball team. we want to field a couple of bikes this time - yeah, we want to do it again. it was really fun)